DC ComicsSuperman battles an alien in the first, oversized installment of "Wednesday Comics," which makes its debut July 8.

The newest thing from DC Comics is not really a comic at all, but a reimagining of the Sunday Funnies . . . that will come out on Wednesdays.

Beginning the first week of July, DC will publish a 15-page, broadsheet version of the Sunday Funnies every Wednesday for 12 weeks.

We're not talking "Family Circus" and "Mary Worth" here. "Wednesday Comics" will feature Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Hawkman and The Flash in new adventures written and drawn by some of the biggest names in the business.

And it won't be just three or four panels. Each comic gets a full page, which lends itself to some interesting permutations.

DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio said the writers and artists were given the freedom to do what they wished with their pages. An installment by Neil Gaiman and artist Mike Allred featuring the shape-changing Metamorpho will be a single, giant panel.

At the other end of the spectrum, writer/artist Ben Caldwell divided a page of his Wonder Woman story into 64 panels.

DiDio said editor Mark Chiarello came up with the idea of a weekly broadsheet comic to sell for $3.99, and he brought together the talent, which includes DiDio. Here's the lineup:

1. "Batman" by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso;

2. "Adam Strange" by Paul Pope;

3. "Metamorpho" by Neil Gaiman and Michael Allred;

4. "Demon/Catwoman" by Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze;

5. "Deadman" by Vinton Heuck and Dave Bullock;

6. "Kamandi" by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook;

7. "Superman" by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo;

8. "Wonder Woman" by Ben Caldwell;

9. "Green Lantern" (Hal Jordan) by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones;

10. "Teen Titans" by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway;

11. "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Connor;

12. "Hawkman" by Kyle Baker.

13. "Sgt. Rock" by Joe Kubert and Adam Kubert;

14. "Metal Men" by Dan DiDio and Jose Louis Garcia-Lopez;

15. "The Flash" by Brenden Fletcher and Karl Kerschl.

As DC's big boss, DiDio had the pick of the litter. So why did he choose to chronicle the adventures of quirky (albeit beloved) robots who have been knocking around since the 1960s?

"Are you kidding?" he asked. "I love the Metal Men. I wrote the story on two long plane rides. I went back to the traditional aspect of the characters, keying in on the different personality of each robot. It was a challenge to put a lot of storytelling in a limited amount of space and end each week with a cliffhanger."

DiDio said the experiment is a different way of presenting comics and could become a regular summer event.

'The Mighty Boosh'

It's not exactly a comic, but "The Mighty Boosh" is certainly comic-ish.

BBC Video will release all three seasons of the award-winning British series that follows two goofy zookeepers as they "embark on an array of peculiar and fantastical adventures at the dilapidated zoo-niverse."

It's also on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, but the whole set comes out Tuesday, July 21.

Indie spotlight

"Shrapnel" ($2.99, Radical Comics). A war's going on in a different time and place, and this time the battles are being fought by soldiers in Iron Man-like exoskeletons. Former Marine Samantha Vijaya is fighting against the Earth Alliance for the freedom of the last free colony among the nine planets, Venus. Writer M. Zachary Sherman creates a strange world with new rules, but it is the moody, murky artwork of Bagus Hutomo and colorist Leos Ng that gives Shrapnel its distinctive look.

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